The invention described here concerns a process to manufacture a cellulose fibre from hydrate cellulose, a cellulose fibre obtainable by this process, as well as a fabric which contains these cellulose fibres and the use of this fabric.
Absorbent fibrous materials which can also be applied for cleaning purposes are already known. Examples are cross-linked carboxy methyl cellulose (CMC), which can be manufactured in accordance with the process described in CH-A-491140, or viscose fibres, which contain hydrophilic polymer substances such as polyacrylic acid (BE-A-2324589), poly-N-vinyl pyrrolidone or CMC (DE-A-25 50 345), alginic acid (DE-A-27 50 622) or other copolymers (DE-A-27 50 900). Besides their high absorptive power, these fibres have good water-retention properties. The manufacture of these fibres, however, is associated with a high degree of technical complexity, and some of these fibres contain substances which either do not biodegrade at all or only with difficulty, so that natural disposal (e.g. composting) of the fibres subsequent to their use not possible.
The object of this invention is to provide a process to permit the manufacture of a cellulose fibre from hydrate cellulose with an extremely large surface area and which biodegrades easily. Another object of the invention is to provide a fabric made from these fibres which is characterised by a high absorptive power, good water-retention properties, high grease-solvent properties as well as particle-absorbing properties, which is suitable for making products that are themselves easy to clean, which can be used for cleaning and decontamination as well as to reduce the surface tension of water and which can be disposed of without damage to the environment.
The above-described objects are solved by the invention-design process to manufacture a cellulose fibre from hydrate cellulose which comprises the following steps:
a) Treatment of wood pulp derived from shoots no older than 1 year of deciduous trees or conifers with an alkali metal hydroxide solution in order to obtain an alkali cellulose;
b) pressing out of the superfluous alkali metal hydroxide solution from the obtained alkali cellulose;
c) shredding of the alkali cellulose into crumbs;
d) ripening of the alkali cellulose crumbs to a maturity of between 5xc2x0 and 30xc2x0 Hottenroth;
e) application of the wet sulphide process to treat the ripened crumbs in order to sulphidise the cellulose;
f) rinsing and diluting of the sulphidised cellulose with water in order to obtain a spinning solution;
g) subsequent ripening of the rinsed and diluted cellulose to a maturity of between 5xc2x0 and 30xc2x0 Hottenroth;
h) filtering and downstream deaeration of the spinning solution;
i) injection of the spinning solution into a regenerating bath under application of spinnerets;
j) stripping off the coagulating fibres with simultaneous twisting in order to obtain twisted fibres;
k) dehydrating of the twisted fibres;
l) desulphurisation of the twisted fibres;
m) washing of the twisted fibres with water;
n) predehydrating of the twisted fibres; and
o) drying of the twisted fibres;
and by a fabric comprising a backing fabric and a pile woven into the backing fabric containing these fibres.